Hare Raising
by Casix Thistlebane
Summary: The Magic Shop is visited by a little fluffy bunny. (may want to have read some of Robyn the Snowshoe Hare's stories first....)


title: Hare Raising  
author: Casix Thistlebane  
  
disclaimer: Half of this is owned by Joss and co.   
Half is owned by RtSH. YOu guess which is which....  
neither is technically used with anyone's permission,  
but I hope Robyn at least will forgive me... ;D  
  
summary: the Magic Shop is visited by a little fluffy  
bunny.  
  
Hare Raising  
by Casix Thistlebane  
  
It wasn't until he crossed the threshold into his own  
apartment (so gleefully free of random teenaged  
invaders since they'd moved the impromptu Scooby  
meetings to the magic shop) that Rupert Giles realized  
that he'd been followed. A small white shape darted  
in as he was closing the door, and no amount of  
encouragement with a foot and a broom could get it to  
leave. Finally, he promised himself he'd put up signs  
advertising a lost rabbit the next day, put down a  
plate of veggies for it in the kitchen, and went to  
bed.  
  
He dreamt that night that he was a king with Cordelia  
as his princess, being chased all over the Sunnydale  
township by Spike carrying a garden gnome and Drusilla  
demanding to know "how high he flew". He didn't think  
upon waking that he could ever find a more disturbing  
image than Death in a leisure suit, but received quite  
a shock nonetheless when he opened his eyes to find a  
white rabbit staring down at him from its position on  
his chest.  
  
The veggies were left untouched, but someone had drunk  
all the milk and taken the prizes out of his cereal.  
  
He made himself a pot o tea to calm his nerves before  
going in to the magic shop, and tried to ignore the  
dignified way the rabbit hopped up on his table and  
sipped tea from his saucer.  
  
"And I suppose now," he said to it, "you expect me to  
think of you as the March Hare instead of the White  
Rabbit?"  
  
The rabbit blinked at him , then glanced  
expressionlessly at the clock by the door. He  
followed its gaze and cursed himself, as he was indeed  
quite late, and Anya would not let him hear the end of  
it.  
  
He wondered fancifully for a ;moment if Anya might  
perhaps call in sick that day, but then reminded  
himself that Anya had not been sick once in her entire  
existence as a human, and that she wasn't likely to  
start now.  
  
The rabbit spent the entire drive to the magic shop  
nibbling on his trousers, and he wished to himself  
that he had bought a stick-shift instead of an  
automatic, as it would have given him an excuse to  
"accidently" squash the bloody thing with his left  
foot. He tried shooing it down the street before  
going into the store, but somehow it managed to be  
waiting for him when he opened the magic shop door and  
was cheerfully sticking its nose, ears twitching, into  
a jar of iocane powder. Giles wondered if he ought to  
rescue it from the poison, but before he could wight  
the pros of being rid of it against the cons of  
feeling partially responsible for the death of an  
innocent rabbit, a scream sent the rabbit skidding off  
the table. Anya had arrived.  
  
Giles vacillated for a long moment from the rabbit,  
hiding behind packages of chicken feet, and Anya,  
hiding behind the counter, then finally ignored both  
and set about opening the store.  
  
Xander, who had of course followed Anya in (his job  
had perfect hours that allowed him to somehow never  
leave Anya's side), finally extracted the rabbit from  
the shelves and dusted the fine, beige powder from its  
nose. He stared at the powder, sniffed it, and  
finally licked it carefully from his fingers. Giles  
was just barely too late to stop him from performing  
this foolish test.  
  
"Xander! That was iocane powder! It's one of the  
most deadly poisons known to man!"  
  
Xander looked stricken for a moment, then met eyes  
with the rabbit in his arms. The rabbit twitched its  
nose, and Xander got his color back.  
  
"Relax, Giles. I've spent the last five years  
building up a resistance to iocane powder."  
  
Giles frowned. "You have?"  
  
"That and Machida drool." Xander blinked and glanced  
at the rabbit. "Which is strange, considering that I  
didn't know what Machida drool was."  
  
"Xander," Anya was peering Kilroy-like over the edge  
of the counter. "Put the bunny down and back slowly  
away."  
  
"Anya, relax. It's just a harmless rabbit."  
  
"Oh sure, you say that now. But just wait until it  
goes psycho and bites Giles's head off, just like in  
that movie with the knights you made me watch."  
  
Xander scoffed. "That's silly, Anya. Monty Python is  
not reality. And I never mad you watch 'Holy Grail'.   
It would have been too scary for you."  
  
The rabbit's nose twitched again, and Xander put it  
down carefully and backed away.  
  
"Giles, isn't there something for me and Anya to do?   
In the back room or something?"  
  
And so Xander and Anya fled from the rabbit, who  
blinked at their passing and hopped off to explore the  
charms box. Giles went about his business, only  
remembering the rabbit for a brief moment when the  
creature harassed a customer looking to buy a rabbit's  
foot. Anya refused to come out all day until Buffy  
and Willow arrived from classes, and decided to name  
it.  
  
"Let's name it 'Meat'. That way we won't feel bad  
when we feed it to Spike!"  
  
"Anya," Xander put a comforting arm over her shoulder,  
causing her to jump. "It's time you faced your fear.   
That's just a bunny."  
  
"Hare, actually." Willow was holding it now,  
scratching its nose gently. "Snowshoe Hare."  
  
"How about Harvey?" Buffy was looking at it with her  
head cocked. It was giving her weird vibes and she  
had the uncomfortable thought that it was staring at  
her.  
  
"Yes. Let's name it after a  
six-foot-invisible-thing-that-nightmares-are-made-of."  
Anya shuddered.  
  
"Actually I was thinking more of the Wonder Hamster."  
  
"We could name it Hunter," Both Xander and Buffy got  
all googy-eyed at the thought. The rabbit blinked,  
and they snapped out of fantasies sharply cut off and  
left forever unfinished.  
  
"I think its a she." Willow commented. If rabbit's  
could purr, this one would have.  
  
"How about Robyn?" Tara put in, and the others  
noticed for the first time that she was there. "That  
way it could work for a boy or a girl."  
  
The rabbit jumped into Tara's arms, causing Anya to  
squeak and run.  
  
"Robyn it is then."  
  
Anya shrieked from the back room.  
  
"I better go talk to her." Xander turned but was  
stopped by Buffy's hand on his shoulder.  
  
"First I have a question." Buffy looked uncomfortable  
for a moment, then seemed determined. "Do you have  
any brothers? 'Cause last night I found headstones  
for Aaron, Andrew, and Anthony Harris. I could swear  
they weren't there before...."  
  
Xander seemed to deflate. "Yeah, they were my  
brothers. That's why my parents are--"  
  
"Xander, I've known you your entire life, and I don't  
remember any brothers." Willow stared at him, looking  
extremely distressed. Xander's jaw worked for a  
moment in confusion, but before he could answer, Anya  
came charging out of the backroom with an axe,  
screaming for blood.  
  
Several things happened at once as Xander and Buffy  
grabbed Anya's arms and Robyn leaped behind a slew of  
spontaneously recreated characters, including Jenny  
Calender, and Riley holding a handful of tinsel. Once  
everyone had been calmed down and the spell Willow and  
Tara had automatically started had been aborted, they  
got Anya to explain.  
  
"It's a demon! Sort of." Anya glared at Robyn, who  
was innocently munching lettuce. "It distorts the  
universe to serve its own twisted whims! You can't  
trust it! It'll do whatever it has to to get its  
way!"  
  
"Anya," Giles leaned against the counter tiredly.   
"While you are usually dependable in cases like these,  
please understand where we would be inclined to doubt  
you. We all know of your bunny- fear--"  
  
"Why do you think I'm afraid of them in the first  
place?" Anya fingered her axe. "Robyn delights in  
wreaking havoc with absurdity, angst, and bad  
spelling!"  
  
Robyn turned up her nose at Anya.  
  
"There's no record in any of my books of a universe  
altering hare."  
  
"Of course there's not record! They mask themselves  
behind disclaimers! There's only one book to use."   
Anya plucked a book labeled "Fanfiktione A-Z" from the  
shelves and opened it to the 'R's. "There!"  
  
Giles glanced from the ancient wood cut of a rabbit in  
sunglasses to the rabbit on his counter, who blinked  
up at him. "Good lord. How do we get rid of it?"  
  
"Well," Anya looked at her axe disgruntledly. "Since  
you wont let me kill it, we have to wait for it to get  
distracted by something in an alternate dimension."  
  
"Right then," Giles closed the book and replaced it on  
the shelf. "In the meantime, I think we'd best all  
get back to work."  
  
By dust they'd experienced everything from Xander in  
tights, to a phone call from a panicked Cordelia  
stating that Angel had turned into a vampiric cow.   
They were beginning to wonder if they'd have to deal  
with an anthropomorphic representation coming to dance  
with Buffy when the rabbit threw its ears up and  
hopped out the door.  
  
"That," Giles said, once it had vanished into the  
sunset, "is the last time I let a bunny follow me  
home."  
  
Everyone laughed and got back to their daily routines.  
Well, except for Willow, who came running out of a  
storage room at closing, screaming that there was a  
large frog on the wall.  
  
Anya grabbed her axe and smiled. "Can we kill this  
one?"  
  
The end  



End file.
